In an animal model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Brazilian researchers tested a therapy that combines photobiomodulation using laser light or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with idebenone, an antioxidant compound investigated for application in neurodegenerative diseases. As reported in an article published in the journal PLOS ONE, the strategy prevented muscle degeneration and improved regenerative capacity in the muscle fibers affected by the disease. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is the most common and most severe form of childhood muscular dystrophy and most often ...

MINNEAPOLIS, June 14, 2024 — NMDPSM, a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy, and the CIBMTR® (Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research®) announced interim results from the ACCESS trial as an oral abstract during the European Hematology Association (EHA) Annual Meeting in Madrid, Spain. The study demonstrated that adults with hematologic malignancies who received peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplant from HLA-mismatched unrelated donors (MMUD) followed by post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) graft-versus-host-disease (GvHD) prophylaxis exhibited a 79% overall survival (OS), the primary ...

Hamilton, ON (June 14, 2024) – A widely available drug helps prevent upper gastrointestinal bleeding in critically ill adults on a breathing machine, according to the results of a global study and meta-analysis led by researchers at McMaster University. The research, published on June 14, 2024 in The New England Journal of Medicine and NEJM Evidence, investigated the effect of the gastric acid suppressant pantoprazole, which is primarily used to treat heartburn caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Patients ...

In a breakthrough that could redefine tea crop protection, a new study has shed light on the genetic makeup of the tea grey geometrid, Ectropis grisescens. Through the re-sequencing of 43 genomes, scientists have mapped out the pest's population structure and its remarkable adaptation to tea crops, offering new avenues for managing this agricultural adversary. Amidst the lush tea plantations, a microscopic menace looms—the tea grey geometrid, a pest that can decimate tea yields with its insatiable appetite. The economic and qualitative havoc wreaked by this insect has prompted an urgent call for innovative pest control solutions. However, the genomic secrets ...

About The Study: This repeated cross-sectional study found that past-year Papanicolaou testing rates were lower in 2022 than 2019, pointing to a need to increase access to screenings to prevent an uptick in cervical cancer incidence. Rural-vs-urban differences in 2022 indicate a need to specifically target rural females.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Tyrone F. Borders, Ph.D., email ty.borders@uky.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.17094) Editor’s ...

    Parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds can learn to make new sounds. No-one knew, but New Zealand’s smallest bird, the rifleman or titipounamu, may have a rudimentary version of the same talent.   University of Auckland research into the bird is part of a rethinking of how and when vocal learning evolved in birds.  Scientists traditionally assumed birds were split into two groups - those which can learn sounds (parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds) and those which can’t - but the study published in the scientific journal Communications Biology ...

In recent years, high-entropy carbide ceramics have received extensive attention and become another research focus in the high entropy materials field, which are also known as multi-component carbide ceramics. The multi-component carbide ceramics not only inherit the special properties of high-entropy materials brought by complex compositions, but also keep the advantages of transition metal carbide ceramics as a kind of ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), such as high melting point, high-temperature stability, high Young's modulus, high hardness, and ...

Curbing the confirmed human influence on the climate system and mitigating climate change require profound transformation of global energy system. In this context, modeling technical progress and innovation within Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) is crucial for providing insights about the consequences of long-term energy system transformation, and capturing the development of several interacting systems and technical evolution process.   A review of Endogenous Technological Change (ETC) written by Hongbo Duan ...

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Sickle Cell Dashboard, launching this month on the Regenstrief Institute website, presents a dynamic, panoptic picture of sickle cell disease throughout an entire state. The new dashboard uses de-identified data from throughout the state of Indiana, obtained from multiple clinical and administrative sources, to present easy-to-understand, interactive visualizations of the disease’s prevalence and burden. The pioneering dashboard, created, developed and maintained by the Regenstrief Institute, is one of the first ...

Synthetically generated population data can reveal the equity impacts of distributing transportation resources and funding across diverse regions, according to new research from NYU's Tandon School of Engineering that uses New York State as a case study. Relying on an artificial dataset representing 19.5 million New York residents and over 120,000 modeled origin-destination trips, researchers from NYU Tandon's C2SMARTER, a Tier 1 U.S U.S. Department of Transportation-funded University Transportation Center, determined how best to invest in transportation services when equitable benefits are an objective. They ...

In a new study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers share evidence that people’s attitudes are deeply woven into language and culture across the globe and centuries. The researchers looked at connections between people’s attitudes and language from 55 different topics like rich vs. poor, dogs vs. cats, or love vs. money. They used four text sources: Current English writing and text, English books going back 200 years, and texts in 53 languages other than English. As a measure of people’s attitudes, they used data from over 100,000 Americans; first, direct self-reports, and second, an indirect ...

Pregnant women who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 are less likely to have a caesarean section or experience hypertension, according to a study.          A meta-analysis funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre of 67 studies which included more than 1.8m women found that being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had a protective benefit against infection and hospitalisation, while vaccination with at least one dose lowered the risk of adverse pregnancy-related and neonatal outcomes.   Drawing on ...

An artificial intelligence-powered method for detecting tumor DNA in blood has shown unprecedented sensitivity in predicting cancer recurrence, in a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian, the New York Genome Center (NYGC) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The new technology has the potential to improve cancer care with the very early detection of recurrence and close monitoring of tumor response during therapy. In the study, which appears June 14 in Nature Medicine, the researchers showed that they could train a machine learning model, a type ...

Washington DC, June 14, 2024: A study by authors from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), published today in Nature Sustainability, reaffirms the world’s growing dependence on depleting groundwater systems. Although efforts to slow down groundwater depletion need to be urgently accelerated, this study indicates that such efforts – in the absence of other accompanying measures – would likely lead to significant food security impacts. The study finds that ending groundwater depletion would lead to sharp declines in food production, ...

About The Study: Among families from North America with germline CDH1 P/LP variants, the cumulative risk of gastric cancer was 7% to 10%, which was lower than previously described, and the cumulative risk of breast cancer among female carriers was 37%, which was similar to prior estimates. These findings inform current management of individuals with germline CDH1 variants. Quote from corresponding author Jeremy L. Davis, M.D.: “We showed that the lifetime risk of cancer, specifically stomach cancer, in people born with CDH1 gene mutations is lower ...

About The Study: The addition of dapagliflozin, a sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor, to standard care for critically ill patients and acute organ dysfunction did not improve clinical outcomes; however, confidence intervals were wide and could not exclude relevant benefits or harms for dapagliflozin.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Fernando G. Zampieri, M.D., Ph.D., email fernando.zampieri@einstein.br. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.10510) Editor’s ...

Disease activity, structural damage, and progression all impact the lives of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and can cause psychosocial distress. While inhibition of inflammation and structural changes have improved significantly following advances in pharmacological treatment in recent dates, the observed impact of these disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD) on key psychosocial outcomes is limited.3 An important feature within the EULAR recommendations on self-management in people with inflammatory arthritis is that digital healthcare is tagged as being essential in supporting and optimising self-management2. . Thus healthcare professionals need to be aware ...

People living with RMDs can now fill out the survey online, sharing their experiences to help build a comprehensive understanding of their disease's impact. The data collected will be invaluable for researchers, healthcare professionals, and patients themselves, providing insights into the burden of RMDs and identifying areas for improvement in care.   EULAR is committed to inclusivity and accessibility; the survey will soon be available in multiple European languages in addition to English. This ensures that a diverse range of patients can contribute their perspectives, enhancing the richness and applicability of the data.   Participants will answer a baseline survey ...

ENTRI aims to:  Create a network of clinical trial centres, accessible to all investigators and sponsors from both public and private sectors. Build capacity and training in clinical trials and experimental medicine studies. Provide RMD-related clinical trials toolkits underpinned by best practice.   By facilitating the delivery of incisive research trial studies, ENTRI helps generate the evidence required to implement changes in clinical practice that are meaningful and beneficial to patients. ENTRI members will be invited to participate in cutting-edge projects sponsored by both public and private sectors. Facilitating faster translation of results into ...

Sjögren’s disease is rare in children, and presenting symptoms differ from those seen in adults. For example, paediatric patients present less often with sicca complaints, and more frequently with parotid gland swelling and fever.1 This new work aimed to identify potentially dysregulated molecular pathways in children with Sjögren’s disease by comparing the transcriptome of peripheral blood cells between 18 patients and 23 controls – using differential gene expression and pathway analysis. In addition to whole transcriptome analysis of blood samples, expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISG) was measured in paired ...

Why are RMDs an issue for Europe? RMDs, often dubbed 'the invisible diseases', affect approximately 120 million Europeans, constituting one in five individuals across the continent. Despite their prevalence, there remains a significant lack of awareness among policymakers and the general public, leading to their frequent neglect in political and financial agendas. However, the impact of RMDs is far-reaching, contributing to physical disability, chronic health conditions, and substantial economic burdens, amounting to an estimated 240 billion Euros annually. Furthermore, RMDs not only pose a direct threat to individual health but also contribute to the ...

Community awareness that children and young people get arthritis is low.1 This is associated with delays in diagnosis, worse clinical outcomes, and adverse societal factors such as stigma and isolation. Raising awareness of childhood arthritis is crucial in combatting these issues to improve the lives of those living with JIA. An abstract plenary session at the 2024 EULAR congress shared work from Juvenile Arthritis Research – a patient organisation in the UK that is involved in a variety of projects to raise awareness and support JIA patients and their families. These include a variety ...

cSLE is a rare multisystem disorder with significant associated morbidity, but evidence-based guidelines are sparse, and as such management is often based on clinical expertise.2 The EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria have shown sensitivity in cSLE patients, which could allow earlier recognition of patients with single or major organ involvement,3 but identifying specific predictors in this vulnerable group is vital for preventing long-lasting damage.   The new work, presented at the 2024 EULAR congress, aimed ...

In the 2023 update of their recommendations for osteoarthritis management, EULAR – The European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology – recognise osteoarthritis as a severe disease, and one with important implications for both the individual and society.3 However, most people with osteoarthritis do not receive optimal management,4,5 and this represents an important unmet need – especially when considering additional systemic comorbidities. To explore this further, ComOA6 has combined case-control and cohort studies for over 3 million people in primary care in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain. The analyses – shared at ...

“Classical Cepheids” are a type of pulsating star that rhythmically brightens and dims over time. These pulsations help astronomers measure vast distances across space, which makes Cepheids crucial “standard candles” that help us understand the size and scale of our universe. Despite their importance, studying Cepheids is challenging. Their pulsations and potential interactions with companion stars create complex patterns that are difficult to measure accurately. Different instruments and methods used over the years have led to inconsistent data, ...